Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Gay Pride 2011
President Clinton officially declared June to be Gay and Lesbian Pride Month back in 2000 (and Obama updated the terminology to include LGBT in 2009) but the celebration and what it stands for dates back well before the turn of this century and spans far beyond the reach of US borders. The Gay Pride Parade has already happened in Tel Aviv (and we’ve found the photographic evidence to prove it), but you can surely find events throughout the rest of the month that are significantly closer to home.
Last June, Alef ran a multi-week issue on just this subject, featuring writers of various genders and sexual orientations who even today are exploring what how they play a part in the greater Jewish community.
Also this time last year Lynn Schusterman – a major player in the Jewish community – wrote an op-ed urging all of us to be fully inclusive of the LGBT members of our Jewish communities.
If this is an issue that really gets you going, we STRONGLY encourage you to check out an organization called Keshet – they specialize in advocating for the inclusion of all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews. Alef did an interview with Keshet Executive Director, Idit Klein as part of our first Gay Pride issue.
Photo by Whistling in the Dark, licensed under Creative Commons.
Home
By Eric Leven
The screaming protesters carried signs at the entrance to the San Diego Zoo: “Danger: 4,000 gay men will be in the park today,” and “AIDS is NOT a family value.”
It was San Diego’s 2003 Gay Pride weekend, and after the Pride parade on Sunday, the zoo opened its doors to an enormously popular annual gay dance event called The Zoo Party. I was in town visiting friends, and went with them to the zoo. The protesters’ signs were meant for us—me, my friends, and all the other attendees. They hated gay people and they wanted us to know.
One sign in particular caught my eye. It said:
“When the party is over tonight, come home” —God
Now, I don’t believe God ever said anything like that, and certainly not in those exact words, but I understood the underlying message: We were ultimately going to burn in hell unless we decided to return to God somehow later that evening.
I remember the sign. I remember the screaming protester who was holding the sign. He was middle-aged, white, overweight, his skin pink and leathery as if he’d spent his entire life in the sun. And I remember the contempt he held for me in his eyes as he shook the sign in my direction and yelled, “Just come home tonight! He’ll always be waiting for you!”
I’d never really taken the time to understand my personal relationship with God. I just accepted the facts: I was Jewish. Growing up with somewhat hippie-ish, Reform parents in the Northern New Jersey suburbs of New York City, Judaism was more of a cultural identity than it was a religion. Sure, my family went to temple on the High Holidays. I knew about Moses, fasting, Rosh Hashanah, and some of the more popular Torah stories. But Judaism for me was more about having Jewish friends, going to summer camp, and having a Hanukkah menorah instead of a Christmas tree. I enjoyed being Jewish but that’s mostly because I grew up in heavily Jewish area. (In my town you were either Jewish or Italian. That was it. No big deal —fugettaboutit!) All my friends were Jewish, so I never really questioned whether I was anything but the norm.
At 14, I started realizing that I might be gay, or at that point, at least different from other boys my age. Men started creeping into my dreams, and in my waking life a natural curiosity about men surged past my curiosity about women. Because this was the late ‘90s, I certainly knew what this meant, and I desperately wanted no part of it. Me? Gay? I refused to be open to the possibility. I couldn’t even bring myself to utter the word “gay,” as if the mere mention of it would tip the scale further in the queer direction.
It was then that I turned to God for the first time. Night after night, I would pray silently through my stress-related-canker-sore-laden mouth to please prevent me from being gay. Please help me to be normal! It wasn’t the lifestyle I was afraid of; it was the damnation. Nothing in the world, I thought, was worse than being gay. I was tormented. What did this mean? Why did it have to happen to me? I tried to change. I prayed. (Of course, all this praying was in English, since I never learned Hebrew. For my bar mitzvah, I’d simply memorized my haftorah portion via a private tutor, since I’d been expelled from Hebrew High for being a nuisance and a troublemaker.) I asked for God’s help. He was the only one who could help me—and since I kept my feelings a secret, He was the only one who knew. This was when my relationship with God officially began.
If I had any sense of relief during this time, it lay in the fact that I was Jewish. While being gay is not necessarily looked at as a “positive” in any religion, Judaism at least seemed somewhat open to dialogue on the topic of diversity and maybe even, yes, homosexuality. In comparison, Christianity seemed so black and white. You either did or you didn’t. You obeyed or went to hell. Quid pro quo. Judaism seemed more malleable, and allowed for layers of interpretation. It reminded me of a tzedekah box. You can give ten dollars or a nickel but either way, it’s good. It all goes to the same place. So could I be Jewish and gay? Is that possible? The question alone eased my torment, comforted me in a way I never considered. It struck me: Wait, hold on…I am Jewish…and I’m gay.
The Jews are an oppressed people. Through that oppression we have learned, we have changed, we have overcome. Therefore, in our ever-changing, culturally diverse and accepting community, there might be room for me. My temple was Reform, my grandparents loved me, and for heaven’s sake, we had a female cantor! I respected Judaism, Orthodox or Reform, and I was proud to be a Jew, and I always had been so how could there not be room for me in this community?
I looked to my parents. They were Jews but they didn’t go to temple every weekend, just on the high holidays, while the neighbors walked to temple every Friday and Saturday! But despite this difference, the neighbors looked at my parents as Jews and my parents looked at the neighbors as Jews. No more, no less. It didn’t seem to matter. Jewish identity was at the center; how you practiced, who you were, well, that’s up to you.
The more comfortable I became with the idea of being gay, the more pride I felt in being Jewish. The parallels were too close. Throughout history the Jews have been struggling for acceptance, a people who have been cast out, enslaved, and nearly exterminated. Doesn’t the same hold true for the gays?
I realized I was leading the life God had intended for me He knew my struggles, but this was His choice. In a way I never expected, I found myself becoming closer to God the more I accepted myself for the gay man I was becoming.
By 21, when I found myself at San Diego Pride, I had already gotten comfortable in my own skin as a gay man, so when I passed that protester pleading for me to return to God, all I did was turn my head and ignore him. Who was he to say anything about my life, my beliefs, or me? How could he know how I personally feel about God? He couldn’t. Nobody could. Because despite what anyone else may say, think, or believe, my relationship with God is my relationship with God, and how I choose to believe and communicate with God is up to me.
I danced wildly that night. I zigzagged through scores of my brothers, smiling, laughing, and cheering. My shirt was off and I felt the wind kiss my bare chest. I stomped my feet joyfully to the music on the very ground God had created for us. In the midst of it all I stopped and thought back to that sign, “When the party is over tonight, come home,” and I smiled. I smiled because I was home and despite whatever that protester said, I felt as though God was there with me the entire time. As though he was sitting on my shoulder, patting me on the back, whispering in my ear, “You’ve made it, my son. Go forth.”
And go forth I certainly did. In the years since that dance party, I used that night in San Diego as the defining moment when I truly understood my individual relationship to Judaism and God. It’s as elementary as a “sticks and stones” mentality: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Those who disapprove of my lifestyle, those who think I have run from God, can say whatever they like. They can believe whatever they want. But they can never take away my personal relationship with God and who I am within the Jewish community.
As an adult, my Judaism played an essential part in who I was becoming as a gay man. While some Jewish men may hate their hirsute nature, I loved mine—it helped me connect with other gay men. Having the ability to grow facial and chest hair at such a young age helped me look and act older than I actually was. At 18 I was telling people I was 22, and I was sneaking into New York City’s premier gay dance clubs without being asked for ID once. My first gay friends were older hairy men who simply accepted me for my hirsute nature. They would become my friends, my mentors, my elders and they would spark a fire within me that would never be extinguished.
I was not ready to fully comprehend the idea of it, but many of these men, my friends, would tell me that they were HIV-positive. Because of this I would become an activist. Knowing these men and their struggle, knowing there was a problem in my community, I used my Jewish affinity for community and struggle as a tool to overcome this disease and light the path for future generations. Soon I would find myself researching safer sex practices, working with sexual education organizations, pleading with my peers to make healthy choices and to play safe.
I took my cues from other prominent activists in the gay community, past and present. I didn’t realize they, too, were all Jewish—Harvey Milk, Larry Kramer, Richard Berkowitz, David B. Feinberg—just as many leaders of the feminist movement were, from Gloria Steinem to Betty Friedan. This all meant something to me. We all shared one common thread: that an aspect of being Jewish was having the ability to fight. We Jews, due to our history and rituals, have crafted an identity of fighters. A people so familiar with intolerance, we have no choice but to become fighters and leaders ourselves. We know intolerance. We know what it is to be different, to be mistreated. We know what it is to be on the outside looking in, and we know more strongly than anyone what the words “never again” truly mean.
“Never again” is the backbone of my activism and the plight of the Jewish people, my voice. Often when I go to temple or talk with my Jewish elders, I am reminded of the words “never again” in conjunction with the horrors and prejudice of the Holocaust. Six million Jews died and we vow, “Never again! Never again!” And in my community, my gay community, a similarly vast tragedy has befallen us. It is AIDS. Thousands upon thousands of us have died, and we continue to become victims. The Holocaust ended decades ago, but to this day the Jewish people chant, “never again.” Using that as my fuel I pledged the same unto my own community. With Jewish history and identity at my core I was given the courage and insight to protect my people and to fight for my community.
I always knew going to Israel was a rite of passage. For my brand of East Coast Jew, it’s just the next step in Jewish adulthood. You go to summer camp, maybe a Phish concert or two, and when you’re done with college you go on Birthright. When talking with other Jews after graduating college there are two questions: What was your major, and have you gone on Birthright yet?
I was 26 when I went. I was researching the trips and I noticed that there was an LGBT group. I glanced over the specifics and found it to be much like all the other trips, except you’re with only gay and gay-friendly people, and some of the trip includes visiting the LGBT centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. While I think having an LGBT trip is important, I also felt that separating myself from what I experience on a daily level to be important, too. I consider myself a well-adjusted guy and I knew I didn’t need the LGBT trip, because going to Israel is about going to Israel, not about my being gay or having to function with only gay or gay-friendly people. Since being gay and being Jewish flow into the same channel for me, it didn’t matter that I would be with mostly straight people when going to Israel. That’s what the Birthright trip was for, after all: to meet and mingle people I would otherwise not have the opportunity to meet.
I knew coming out on my trip wasn’t going to be an issue for me. Most people don’t know I’m gay until I out myself, but I wasn’t concerned about any reaction. I really don’t care if people accept me or not, in the end I’m a hard guy to dislike, but I had faith in my fellow young Jews that this was going to be a non-issue—and it was. Also, to my surprise, I would find there were two other gay men on the trip with me who felt the same way. We just wanted to go to Israel; whether or not we visited an LGBT center in Tel Aviv didn’t matter. I came out to people slowly but surely, mostly when people would ask if I was seeing anyone or had a girlfriend; as I expected, I wasn’t judged, criticized, or ostracized.
The only thing I was nervous about was how I would feel upon approaching the Kotel, the single event I had been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to. The Western Wall in many ways is an epicenter of Judaism, one of the few places in the world that is recognized by all Jews as a place to speak with God, a place to pray and ask for guidance. This was the ultimate test in a way. I wondered if at the wall, among all the Orthodox, I would suddenly have a feeling of unworthiness. I found myself a little afraid, a little short on the confidence I used to carry myself through life. After all, I would be standing with God on his home turf. I gathered my thoughts. I recalled my life experiences, pulled upon my strengths, and looked into my heart. I wasn’t unworthy. Of course that wall was meant for me. It didn’t matter how holy the land or how many Orthodox were going to be there—this was my wall too as much as it was theirs. I am Jewish.
The day before my group was to go to the Kotel, I was offered one final sign that would stand as my last spark of strength. I came out to my trip guide, Guy, with whom I had formed a quick friendship. His response was one that I’ll never forget. An Israeli man, so knowledgeable and loving of his land, looked me in the eye said simply, “You should be very proud of yourself. Never lower your voice!” At that moment it all came together—this is how I am Jewish. My voice, being an activist, taking care of my community, that is all related to my Jewish identity. I was ready to face the wall. I was ready to bare myself to God, in his house.
I remember the day. It was bright with the almost white sun glaring down on the city of Jerusalem. The Old City dazzled me with the sandstone streets and ancient housing built into rock. I turned the bend and the wall stood before me. There it was, huge, tall, exactly as I had seen it in books and countless illustrations. I saw the sea of Hasidim dressed in black and white and yet I was ready to walk past them and approach the wall. As I entered the lower level I just kept walking. One foot in front of the other. I walked slowly, absorbing the wall with every step. The closer I got to the wall the more my fears and hesitations subsided. This place is mine. This is my homeland, too. When the wall was just a few yards away I felt myself grow, pure and honest. My chest opened to the wall. I don’t remember those last steps but suddenly I was caressing the wall, even trying to hug it.
It is Jewish tradition that when at the wall, one is to write a note to God. People say that if you were to remove all the notes from the cracks, the wall itself would crumble.
I wrote a note to God that day, but I didn’t ask Him for anything. What could I ask from Him? I was happy and healthy and loved the life He had given me; there isn’t a single thing I would change about who I am and how I feel about myself. Instead, I thanked Him. I thanked Him for everything, for this life, for my struggles, for my people, and giving me the opportunity to be the man I am with all I have and all that I have been given. Before I left, I kissed the wall and gave the stones one final caress, whispering, “Thanks for letting me come home.”
Eric Leven is a field producer for reality and documentary programs for such networks as MTV, ABC, TLC, and A&E—having worked on such shows as WifeSwap, My Super Sweet Sixteen, and BBQ Pitmasters. As an activist and community organizer, he writes about gay politics for The Bilerico Project and on his own blog, Knucklecrack (knucklecrack.blogspot.com); he also produces and directs photo and video campaigns around HIV-prevention, which can be seen online at vimeo.com/knucklecrack. He went on a Birthright trip with Taglit-Israel Experience in 2007 and currently lives in New York City.
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**This essay appears in What We Brought Back: Jewish Life After Birthright, a new anthology written by Birthright alumni, and published by The Toby Press in conjunction with Birthright Israel NEXT and Nextbook Inc.
Photo by keepitsurreal, licensed under Creative Commons.
Why Gay Pride Matters to Alef
By Richard Skeen
Alef editorial meetings are usually lively and opinionated (would you expect anything different?), but in a recent meeting where we decided to extend our Gay Pride issue an extra week, the difference in our views struck me as a story within a story. The debate was around how much of our audience – young Jewish adults – cared enough about Gay Pride stories to sustain another week. While traffic and participation suggested the theme resonated with many, some from our team argued that Gay Jewish identity was no different than any other Jewish identity, and shouldn’t get an extra week. How central, in the context of Jewish identity, is Gay Pride?
Today is the Gay Pride parade in lower Manhattan, my old neighborhood. While dropping kids off at Summer camp precludes me from actively participating, this day always brings me back to fond memories of my first New York home. I lived just off Gay Street (named after the Captain, not the identity, but still…), two blocks from the Stonewall Tavern (the birthplace of the American Gay rights movement – think Paul Revere, but riding in leather chaps) in the heart of Greenwich Village. My neighborhood, like the fashion magazine world I worked in, was bursting with LGBT folks drawn to the lack of prejudice and the vibrant scene of the Village. And while I was a floundering heterosexual, I was a huge beneficiary of living amongst my Gay neighbors: from top flight gyms and restaurants to colorful and clever stoops and doorways, the wide array of boutique shops to a happy-vibe on the sidewalks, the huge Gay presence created a kind of utopia and richer life for all of us.
While the various Jewish denominations take different views on same-sex marriage and the kind of love permissible under Halacha (Jewish law), our people have a better track record than most when it comes to Gay rights. Certainly among young Jewish adults, full acceptance of, and support for gay rights is common. Israel’s gay-rights record is well ahead of the curve, and Tel Aviv is among the top Gay vacation spots in the world. But is that good enough?
In a recent essay about the importance of including the LGBT community completely into the Jewish community, philanthropist Lynn Schusterman argues that despite much progress, we are still behind where we should be in providing an inclusive environment for all Jews: “In an era when all Jews are Jews by choice, our community and, in turn, our nation benefits from every source of Jewish vitality and strength, including the creativity and vibrancy of LGBT Jews.”
Though still new, Alef has explored many kinds of Jewish identity, and the issues confronted with being Jewish in a world that is pluralistic and complicated. We have learned a lot, been inspired and come to realize the huge value in the vast diversity of the contemporary Jewish experience. We recognize that many issues are nuanced and complex, but we are sure that the Jewish community is richer for having participation from the LGBT community, and hope that all of Kol Yisrael will work to grow that participation. We think this is important, and we hope you do too.
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Photo by sgt fun, licensed under Creative Commons.
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Read more posts from the Gay Pride issue.
Chanukah in June
By Jay Michaelson
Alef editor’s note: An earlier version of this article appeared in The Forward on December 10, 2008.
Chanukah in June makes about as much sense as Christmas in July. But the Festival of Lights does have something in common with Pride Month: coming out. Yes, Chanukah is a “coming out” holiday, in both its origins and its contemporary forms.
First, the Chanukah story is, in large part, a story of coming out — not in terms of sexuality, of course, but more generally, it’s about being open and honest about oneself and one’s values, and demanding that difference be accommodated. The circumstances that led to the Maccabean revolt were not so much single acts of oppression as they were a slow, insidious process of erasure. Some of that process was imposed by the Syrian-Greek occupiers of Palestine, but some, let’s remember, was embraced by Hellenizing Jews. As a means of assimilation, Jews semi-voluntarily took on Greek names and Greek customs, and began regarding Jewish worship as one option among many.
The Maccabees – in a part of the Chanukah story they don’t teach you in Sunday school – rebelled against this assimilation, even forcibly circumcising baby boys against the wishes of the children’s parents. Hardly a model of religious tolerance, but definitely a form of coming out. They didn’t demand equal treatment of Hellenizers and non-Hellenizers; they demanded that Jews be acknowledged as different.
Today, Chanukah plays an oddly similar role. Every December, we are inundated with images of Christmas: endless sleighs and trees and Santas and the rest. Everyone’s meant to get into the spirit of the “holidays.” Which is why, as Kyle Broslovsky of Comedy Central’s animated series “South Park” put it, it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas. This is why celebrating Chanukah is like coming out: it’s about admitting difference, recognizing that one is not the same as everyone else and, hopefully, celebrating the unique gifts that being different offers.
Sometimes people ask why we need Gay Pride Month, and Pride parades. Well, the answer is simple: because coming out is not easy. Here, my own story may be instructive. I sort of knew I was gay at 18, definitely knew at 23, but didn’t come out until, at age 30, a wonderful woman I had been dating finally dumped me (good for her!) and I realized I couldn’t “make it work” as a bisexual. What took me so long? I’m an intelligent, reasonably sensitive, and courageous guy. Why did I spend 10 years hating myself, repressing my deepest desires, and failing to embrace the gifts of emotional and sexual fulfillment?
Because “coming out,” which sounds so simple, is really very hard. I’m not saying I had the courage of the Maccabees, or the drag-queen heroes at Stonewall whose rebellion Pride Month commemorates. But when I look back on my own coming out process, I’m amazed I did it at all. In the hope that my story can inspire you to come out in whatever way can help you lead your life – sexually, religiously, emotionally, whatever – I want to share a few of the specific reasons coming out was so hard, and yet so worthwhile in retrospect.
First, I didn’t know what I was missing. I had no idea how dead I was inside, how emotionally cut off I was from other people or what love was really about. My friends will tell you: I was a different person entirely — more sarcastic, more insular, less open, less honest. Try it yourself: Lie to everybody you know about what’s most important to you, and see what happens. And if you’ve been doing it yourself, please take the leap of faith. It’s way, way better on this side of the chasm. Trust me.
Oh, and by the way, “Hate the sin, love the sinner” doesn’t work. Sexual identity, like religious identity, isn’t some part-time hobby. If you hate the sin, you’re going to end up hating yourself.
Second, and relatedly, I thought that coming out would destroy everything I valued. I thought it would end my Jewish religious life, end my chances at normalcy, and alienate me from family and friends. I was wrong on all counts. My spiritual and religious life blossomed once I stopped hating God for making me gay. I was able to start thinking about having a real life, a family, and a career only after I stopped having fake ones. And my being honest about myself has enabled me to forge friendships that are deeper than I had ever imagined back in the closet. (“Closet” is probably too cozy a word; “tomb” is better.)
I have also watched my family members evolve in their own views and come not only to accept my sexuality but also to embrace it — a tall order, to be sure, especially as they themselves still encounter homophobia from their friends. But what mother doesn’t want her son to be happy? Eventually, we learn that love, happiness, justice, and holiness are all that matter — and if homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality leads to those things, baruch hashem.
Finally, I think it took me so long to come out because I lacked the kind of community and values that would have given me the courage I needed to do so. All my friends and family members were straight, and the gay world I saw on TV looked superficial, hypersexual, and weird. It was only once I came out that I realized sexuality is about more than having sex, and that being queer, like being Jewish, is a blessing. In an ideal world, we all grow up with religious and personal role models. But because few GLBT people grow up in gay families, coming out can be lonely, terrifying, and embarrassing.
Yet it is also the Jewish thing to do. It may be hard to be a Jew on Christmas, but it’s by daring to do so that we’ve survived the past 3,000 years and created a culture and religion worth preserving. Well before the Maccabees, the very first Jew, Abraham, was told by God to come out: to get out of his father’s house, follow his own spiritual path and cross over to the other side of the river. From this act, our nation and language get the name Ivri — “Hebrew” — the one who crosses over. And from Abraham’s repeated answers to God’s queries we get the consummate statement of self-exposure: Hineni, Here I am.
The lessons of coming out are Jewish lessons. Just like repressed gay people, repressed Jews don’t know how damaging it is to closet our religious and cultural selves; how invigorating it is to be open, honest, and celebratory about who we are; or how empowering it is to be part of a community of boundary-crossers. So, my advice for celebrating Chanukah in June? Stop repressing and stop equivocating. Whatever closet you’re hiding in, whether it’s sexual, religious, professional, cultural, or just plain dull and repressive — come out, please, wherever you are.
Jay Michaelson is executive director of Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture & Spirituality.
Photo by Brymo, licensed under Creative Commons.
Coming Out (Again)
By Idit Klein
“What do you do for work?”
Two days into my new position as executive director of Keshet I am at the shiva for a family friend. Most of the people here are older members of my parents’ synagogue whom I’ve known since I was a kid. One woman approaches me, smiling: “Your mother tells me you just finished graduate school. So, what are you doing now?”
For a moment I freeze and then stammer something about Keshet and working for the inclusion of gay Jews in the Jewish community.
I watch her smile turn into a firm line. “Oh, very nice,” she says and walks away.
I spend the rest of the shiva steering conversations away from questions about what I do for work–and feel guilty for hiding.
Being a professional queer Jew has meant losing the comforting possibility of ever separating my work identity from my personal identity. It means being unequivocally and irrevocably “out.” It means having to constantly answer the question, “What do you do for work?” and choosing either to come out–both as a Jew and a lesbian–or to hide.
When I became the director of Keshet in late August 2001, I faced a number of organizational challenges. I needed to build a board, grow a dwindling membership, and create new programs. I urgently needed to raise money and find new donors. And I needed to confront homophobia in the community that had always been my home. I knew the work would be difficult but assumed the issues, at least, would be clear. I thought people would see the homophobia and heterosexism in their communities either as problematic and in need of change, or as intrinsic to Jewish tradition and thus unavoidable. I was unprepared for how frequently these biases would lie unnoticed just below the surface of communal life; I did not expect people to be so fiercely invested in keeping these dynamics unseen and unacknowledged. I also didn’t expect to struggle with my own invisibility as a queer person.
“It takes energy to hide.”
I say this repeatedly when I talk with rabbis, directors of education at Hebrew schools, and other Jewish community members about why it is important for teachers to feel comfortable being out in the classroom. “If you are hiding an essential part of yourself, you are unable to be fully present, to be the most effective teacher, counselor, mentor, all the roles educators play in students’ lives.” But I have learned that it also takes energy to make oneself visible over and over and over.
A recent experience: I’m in a cab coming home from the airport after four long days of meetings, presentations, buttoned-down shirts, and stiff shoes. I’m exhausted and close my eyes, falling asleep in the wide, empty back seat.
“So, you coming back from vacation?” The driver’s voice jerks me awake.
“Um, no,” I say, “I was on a work trip,” my eyes already fluttering shut again.
But he’s in a conversational mood and continues, “Oh yeah, what were you doing?”
“Oh, I was at a conference in L.A.,” I answer. I didn’t plan to be vague. Yet as the final syllable escapes my lips, I know that I am hiding. He asks more questions, but I don’t tell him what kind of conference I was attending. I look at the “These Colors Don’t Run” American flag decal on the driver’s dashboard and his profile: crew cut, thick neck, ruddy face. I let my own biases and assumptions make me afraid. I allow myself to give in to my weariness and avoid engagement. And I berate myself for my fraudulence.
I was once on a bus in Israel sitting hand in hand with my girlfriend when two women started yelling, “Yesh lesbiot b’autobus ha-zeh! Yesh lesbiot b’autobus ha-zeh!” ["There are lesbians on this bus!"] while moving towards us threateningly. Yet years later, when I reflect on the challenges I have faced as a queer Jew, it is the countless, everyday experiences of coming out and being out that, perhaps surprisingly, impact me more. It is the constancy of the choice between integrity and the potentially painful risk of exposure; the need to be strong in the face of subtle, and at times, blatant, rejection.
“That’s never been an issue here.”
“But we don’t have any gay members” is the message I often hear from leaders in Jewish institutions, when I approach them with an offer to facilitate a GLBT awareness training for educators, a community dialogue about GLBT issues, or any other program that includes any of the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” or “transgender.” And then, with an expression that is slightly pained and concerned, some version of the question, “Are there really many of you?”
And so the question for me becomes: How can I prove the relevance of this work? How do I show the need? How can I expose the problem of queer invisibility?
Mostly, I tell stories. I share half a dozen tales of queer Jews. I talk about the youth group leader who was fired after he came out. The 31-year-old gay man who grew up Orthodox and now attends Unitarian Universalist services with his partner because they feel more welcome at their local UU church than at the Conservative shul. The candidate for a teaching position whose job offer was abruptly withdrawn after he came out. The 87-year-old lesbian who says kaddish alone for her partner of 64 years because she can’t conceive of a synagogue welcoming her.
I also ask questions.
“How did your shul/day-school/community organization get to the point where GLBT inclusion is a ‘non-issue’? What does that mean?”
“Can I tell our members that your shul is welcoming to gay people? Would it be comfortable for a lesbian couple to kiss one another Shabbat Shalom?”
“Do you want to have a more diverse community? Do you want the gay people who I’m sure are already in your community to feel safe and welcome being out?”
These questions tease out the hidden narratives. A rabbi tells me about the distraught parents who came to him for support after their daughter came out. A Hebrew school teacher talks about a 5th grade girl, Avital, who wears tzitzit, is growing pe’ot, and wants to be called only Avi. A day school principal remembers the Jewish history teacher who married her partner and could not share her simcha with the community. Slowly, the silence is punctuated by voices of loss, pain, and isolation. It is only then that the invisibility is seen and the loss is felt. It is then that we can begin to explore how to change this reality.
“But we’re not homophobic.”
I also frequently encounter people who are sincerely perplexed about the fact that not being homophobic cannot in and of itself create full inclusion. Soon after I started working for Keshet, I was asked to make a short presentation about our work to the allocations committee of a Jewish federation. Afterward, a man raised his hand and introduced himself as the coordinator of a Jewish young adult couples group. He explained his confusion: “I just don’t understand. I mean, I’m not homophobic. My girlfriend isn’t homophobic.” The woman sitting next to him smiled and nodded vigorously. “I really think no one in our group is homophobic, but no gay couples have ever come to one of our events. Why don’t they come?”
I responded with a simple question: “How would a gay couple know that you and the others in your group are not homophobic?” He blinked, “Um, I’m not sure what you mean.” I asked him if there was any language in the group’s description, images in PR materials, or advertising that GLBT people would see and thereby understand that this was an inclusive community.
The queer Jew who seeks a shul will take note of signposts of inclusion. Are there openly out members of the community? Do membership forms only offer spaces for “husband” and “wife” or do they easily accommodate other types of families? Does faculty orientation for Hebrew school teachers cover how to talk about family inclusively and what to do when kids say “That’s so gay”? In short, does the institution demonstrate active efforts to create an inclusive and welcoming culture?
Some of us will look for more than simple inclusion. We will seek communities that are open to transformative inclusion. Transformative inclusion is not just tolerance or even warm acceptance; it requires an awareness of the unique contributions GLBT Jews can offer and a commitment to embracing those gifts, even if that involves change. This means integrating queer Jewish narratives into our broader communal stories. It means changing long-held assumptions that all girls will grow up to marry boys and vice versa; that family trees begin with a mother and a father; that the ideal Jewish family follows a heterosexual nuclear model.
“Of course, we want gay people to feel supported, but homosexuality is not something we want to encourage.”
When I came out, like many of my generation, I was in college. I had been involved in my Hillel from practically my first step on campus. The Jewish community was my home. Yet when I came out, I suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. Even with the support of close friends and our Hillel rabbi, it took courage for me to come out in this Jewish community simply because there was no one else who was out.
I never heard any blatantly homophobic comments, but I felt the unfriendly stares when I walked into Hillel for Shabbat dinner holding my girlfriend’s hand. The complete absence of any signs of GLBT life in the campus Jewish community made me feel like I needed to declare my presence–or risk being swallowed up by the invisibility. There was a tremor in my voice during my carefully prepared coming-out “speech” to the Hillel executive committee. When I stopped speaking most of the room burst into applause, and I felt the quick, hot flush of relief and gratitude.
I am grateful for the loving support of my friends and the majority of my college community, but looking back, I am also troubled. Why? Because nearly fifteen years later, too many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jewish youth growing up today still have similar experiences–and they are the lucky ones.
As I write this, I imagine the irritated, confused chorus of voices saying, “Well, what does she want?” What I want is for no Jew to fear that his Jewish community will reject him because he is gay, bisexual, and/or transgender. I want no Jew to feel so invisible that she has to affirmatively declare her presence as a lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender person and, without any certainty, hope for acceptance. I want every Jewish child to know that ours is a community with an equal place for everyone: gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, straight, and/or trans (“trans” is increasingly being used as an umbrella term for transgender and transsexual identities.)
In this Jewish community, acceptance is not offered only once someone claims a GLBT identity; affirmation of all sexual and gender identities is a priori an integral part of our culture and communal values. In this Jewish community, our children know that whether they are gay or straight they can lead happy, healthy lives with strong, vibrant Jewish identities. In this Jewish community, the multiple realities of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are part of the lived, taught, and celebrated Jewish experience.
The whole concept of being “out” presumes that the point of departure is to be “in,” that queer identity begins in a state of concealment. I am committed to a new status quo in which there is no “in” from which to emerge. I seek a reality that offers multiple ways of being as equally valid and Jewishly authentic.
“It takes energy to hide.”
Almost six years after that family shiva, I attended another family event — this time a simcha, my brother’s wedding. My girlfriend and I are the first couple to walk down the aisle, followed by the bride’s sister and her boyfriend, and then the two pairs of parents. My family has accepted and supported me for years, but this kind of public recognition feels different and also important.
The burden of coming out is always with me. In moments when I avoid disclosure, my own hidden fissures crack through to the surface. When I lack the strength to out myself and be myself, I want to know that the Jewish community will hold me up and support me. I call on our community to rebuild the foundation of Jewish life to integrate what is still missing. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalms 118:22). May those who do the work of building and leading our community fix inclusion at the core of Jewish life now and in all the days to come.
Idit Klein serves as the Executive Director of Keshet, a national, grassroots organization working for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender inclusion in Jewish life.
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